


shine through and make it bright

by Stonestrewn



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 18:57:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4798721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonestrewn/pseuds/Stonestrewn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yvette told me nothing... Except that there were things she wasn’t allowed to tell. On the strictest orders.”</p><p>“Oh, goodness.”</p><p>“She let slip something about the two of you climbing?”</p><p>Josephine sighs. “I assume we’re here now because you want me to-”</p><p>“Tell me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	shine through and make it bright

The tea table is impeccably set. Draped with a white linen cloth, embroidered in pale green and rose, trimmed with a fine braided fringe. A silver teapot on three spindly legs presides over a full set of cups, saucers and assiettes made out of porcelain so thin it’s near transparent when held up against the light. Pastries, delicate and delicious, lie wantonly on a tiered silver tray, powdered with sugar, glistening with sticky jelly or glaze. It’s all as inviting as could be, but Josephine takes one look at Leliana’s face, the quirk of her lips and the eyes gleaming under her hood, and knows that it’s a trap. 

“What is this, now?” Josephine asks. She stays on the doorstep, writing board clutched against her chest with one hand, steel pen in the other, her own sword and shield. 

“Your weekly Wednesday interlude,” Leliana answers, as sweetly as the scent of the lilies bowing gracefully over the edge of the tall crystal vases, one for each window. The curtains are drawn and sunlight streams into the room, one of the side chambers converted to salons for more intimate congregations than the large, official dinners. This is where they gather, Josephine and her two colleagues, to catch up on matters not strictly related to their work, to forge the bonds that will see them through this crisis as a unit much stronger than they can hope to be as three separate pieces. Supposedly.

“So you do know they are weekly,” Josephine says. “Your behavior thus far suggests otherwise.” 

“Oh, Josie.” Leliana laughs with precision. Light, amused but kindly so, mild and forgiving of this misplaced suspicion. Perfectly clueless, utterly innocent, the image of niceness unless she herself has taught you to read her. “Come, don’t be cross. Sit down and have some cake. You should try the chocolate truffle macarons; I know they’re your favorite.”

They are, and they look mouthwatering. None of the permanent residents at Skyhold are particularly spoiled by excessive luxury, inconveniently placed in relation to the still functioning trade routes as they are, and Josephine left a few small vices behind when she accepted her current position. She takes a step into the room. 

“This is rather unexpected,” she says, eyes narrowed. She puts a hand on the back of the chair opposite Leliana, but doesn’t sit down. “Whatever brought it on, I wonder?”

“Must I need a reason? Beyond wanting to spend time with one of my dearest friends?”

“That is indeed the question.”

Leliana shakes her head, smiling. She reaches for the teapot, pours Josephine a cup. The steam curls around her fingers, still in her thick leather gloves. Josephine knows that underneath her nails are chewed down to the skin. 

“Do excuse my astonishment,” Josephine continues, dryly, when an explanation doesn’t seem to be impending. “I cannot recall you ever showing much interest in attending my interludes, much less organizing them. One might wonder what inspired this sudden effort, and be entirely justified to do so.” 

“You and I haven’t spoken since Halamshiral.”

“We work together, we speak every day.”

“We talk, yes. But we don’t _speak_.”

Josephine knows she should watch her step. Leliana has set up an ambush for her, a spirited little one woman conspiracy - but she doesn’t feel much like playing along. She gets her share of intrigue, she fights enough word wars professionally to enjoy them leisurely between friends, and she doesn’t appreciate having her sincere attempt at providing them all with a refuge from this sort of thing turned into a game of cat and mouse. At least not when she is cast as mouse. 

She plops down on the chair, placing her writing board in her lap. “Oh, this is ridiculous. There’s no need for these charades between us, just tell me what it is you need of me and I will give it to you.” She stops, then quickly adds: “Within reason, of course,” because dealing with Leliana without caveats is inviting the demon into your home. 

Leliana’s smile only widens. She picks up a pair of silver pastry tongs, picks up one of the sweets and points it towards Josephine in offer. 

“Macaron?”

Josephine rolls her eyes, but holds out her assiette. If Leliana is set on being impossible, so be it. She can at least get some chocolate out of this. 

The macaron momentarily sweeps all annoyance from her mind. Leliana is right: these are her favorites. The crumbly almond against the smooth and creamy truffle, the heady taste of cacao. It’s the small things, truly. 

“I enjoyed seeing Yvette again,” Leliana says, snapping Josephine out of her reverie. 

“Oh?”

“We had a lovely chat.”

“I… I didn’t notice.” She takes a sip of tea, her little finger rigid. Nothing good can come of this.

“You were engaged elsewhere at the moment. With Celene’s ladies-in-waiting, as I recall.”

Of course. Leliana would seize the moment when Josephine was busy wrangling those three, too occupied with maneuvering around Lady Fleur’s un-truths and half-lies to pay attention to her sister. She had tried to keep a constant eye on Yvette. Josephine is loathe to use the phrase ‘damage control’ with one she loves so, but experience has taught her that letting Yvette mingle unsupervised is rarely the wisest cause of action. 

“I hope you had the chance to catch up properly,” she says warily.

“We did,” Leliana says. “It’s always interesting to speak with Yvette.”

“I’m sure.” 

“She’s so very full of stories.”

“Indeed.”

“And so eager to tell them.”

Josephine glares at her. “What did you hear?”

“Nothing.”

“...Really, now.”

“Really.” Leliana turns to the pastry on her plate, a thing of jelly covered cherries in a crust probably baked with almond flour, if Josephine knows her North Orlesian cuisine. She cuts a bite-sized piece with her fork, chews slowly, thoughtfully, then says: “But that’s interesting, too. The things you don’t hear.”

“Yes, yes, you are the spymaster, versed in the art of silence and secrets and I do so applaud your remarkable perception,” Josephine says with a scoff that causes Leliana’s smile to spill over into a grin. It’s hard to stay miffed in the face of it. Her true smiles - the glittering ones, brimming with mischief - are rare these days. “Just get on with it! Yvette clearly said something.”

“She didn’t. I swear. She is a good sister, you know.”

“A fact somewhat depending on definitions,” Josephine says. Telling the Inquisitor about her… collectible fashion figurines was neither good nor sisterly. 

Leliana chuckles, ever impervious to Josephine’s furrowed brows. “Yvette told me nothing... Except that there were things she wasn’t allowed to tell. On the strictest orders.”

“Oh, goodness.”

“She let slip something about the two of you climbing?”

Josephine sighs. “I assume we’re here now because you want me to-”

“Tell me.”

Leliana leans her elbows on the table, fingers intertwined, flashing her teeth all ready to tear into this tasty morsel of a tale. Josephine supplies herself with another macaron, for strength. 

“Don’t you have enough embarrassing anecdotes about me to sustain yourself by now?” Stories shared in the midnight boudoirs of Val Royeaux, her inhibitions lowered by sweet liquor and sweeter kisses, drunk on laughter and the feel of bare skin. About childhood mishaps and teenage fumblings, confessions and admissions she’d never make in sober daylight and sometimes regretted afterwards, but always returned in kind with Leliana’s own offerings of thrills and heartaches. 

“Embarrassing? That’s your word,” Leliana says. “I say endearing.” 

“I didn’t let Yvette tell the Inquisitor, and I won’t be telling you,” Josephine says. She bites into her macaron with finality. 

“All right. I won’t force you.” A beat. “You should consider, though: I’m willing to bargain.” 

“I’ve never known you to be desperate, Sister Nightingale.”

“I could find out on my own if I wanted,” Leliana says, and is there the slightest hint of defensiveness in her tone of voice? Just the faintest dusting of peevishness? Josephine can’t be sure, but she would like to imagine it, only for a second, “but I’d rather not. You’ll give it to me willingly, or I won’t have it.”

That all sounds very good indeed, but as gracious and respectful as Leliana presents herself, she knows full well Josephine will be too curious about the proposed bargain not to inquire. 

“What’s your offer, then?” Josephine says, giving in with a sigh. 

“You’re the one with all the leverage here. Make a demand, and we’ll see if I can rise to meet it.” 

Josephine raises a brow as she waits for the catch, but there is no addendum. She sets about finishing her macaron while she considers the matter: she’s not so averse to sharing the story if there’s something to be gained from it, even these days when she keeps a firmer hold of her image in all areas of her life. Leliana pours herself another cup of tea.The sun sparkles in the silver, makes the tresses of her hair that peek out from under her hood glow like molten gold, and it’s a lovely image. Leliana, at ease and at peace, out of her cold, crowded rookery with it’s dust and dusky corners. Josephine savors it. This little leisurely moment of a kind that’s increasingly rare as the Inquisition strengthens at the same rate as the shadows under Leliana’s eyes deepen. 

And she knows the trade she wants to make. 

She looks Leliana in the eye, and says: “One year of perfect interlude attendance, with Cullen equally a fixture. I don’t want to see you covering for him anymore.”

This earns her the pleasure of seeing Leliana blink. “He does-” she starts, but Josephine interrupts. 

“Oh, don’t you start. I am well aware our dutiful Commander isn’t occupied by his many and various duties half as often as you would have me believe. Did you really think I wouldn’t catch on eventually?”

“Well,” Leliana says. She doesn’t have the good grace to look sheepish, but she chews at her lower lip for a second. “No?”

Josephine snorts. “I ought to feel insulted, you know.”

“I was trying to _spare_ your feelings.”

“The solution to a problem must not always come wrapped in lies! And, really, you must stop letting Cullen hide behind you this way. Is he a truant child or a commander of the Inquisition?”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Leliana says with a huff. “That man can be so stubborn.” 

“Unlike you?”

“I’ve not been stubborn. I’ve been trying to limit the effects of someone else’s stubbornness.”

“It looks rather similar from the outside, I’m afraid.”

“...Maybe.”

“Nevertheless, those are my conditions,” Josephine says. “You will both attend, and you will both like it.”

“How do you expect me to make him like it? I can’t do that. No one can do that. He’s a stubborn, scowling mule.”

“Dearest Leliana.” Josephine sighs the most wistful of pitying sighs. “It grieves me to hear you’ve lost your touch. However shall we get on with you in retirement?” 

Leliana makes a small sound halfway between a gasp and a laugh. “How is that for niceness, ambassador?”

“There’s no need to bring out your knives, just stop making excuses for him and look frightening in the background while leaving the rest to me. All I need is for him to give it a chance, and you as well. Two hours of your time each Wednesday; that isn’t much to ask. Please trust me, in time you’ll see how beneficial it will be to us all. You’ll both see.”

“It still means finding a way to squeeze it into our schedules. And they’re quite busy.”

“I dare say I’m the busiest among us,” Josephine says, “and I make time. Besides, this isn’t negotiable. You will either accept or refuse the offer, that is all.”

“Oh, I accept. Of course I do,” Leliana says simply.

It’s not quite what Josephine expected, but when Leliana smirks and asks: “Surprised?” she gathers her features and replies with a professionally pleasant: “Nonsense. I’m pleased we could arrive at an agreement.” She raises a brow. “As long as you understand that whatever I tell you must never leave this room.”

“Keeping secrets is my job.”

“So is revealing them.”

“Never those of my allies,” and now Leliana is serious. 

Countering the sincerity with mock affront, Josephine smiles at her. “And your friends? What of theirs?”

“That’s fair game. Obviously.”

Josephine shakes her head, smiling, as she reaches for her writing board. “Let me just draft up a contract very quickly.” 

“Is that necessary? Between friends?”

“It is never as necessary as between good friends, if one wishes the friendship to last.”

She writes the contract, ignores Leliana’s sigh as she puts her signature to the paper, and then… Then all that is left to do is taking the plunge. 

It will be all right, Josephine decides. One never gets something for nothing, as an Antivan she is well aware. 

“I was only twelve at the time,” she begins, “still living with my parents in Antiva City.”

“Oh, a tiny Josie,” Leliana says. “I bet you were precious.”

Josephine squirms, catches herself, stops. “Awkward, would be more accurate.”

“But that _is_ precious.”

“Not everyone thought so, certainly,” Josephine says with a snort, and Leliana pats her hand.

“Ah. I see. Who was mean to you?”

“If I tell you, will I hear news in the morning that both the Ezzelini sons have been mysteriously assassinated?”

“That depends. What did they say?” The corners of Leliana’s eyes are crinkled not with murder, thankfully, but amusement.

Josephine takes a bracing deep breath. “....Nugface.”

“Really?” From her tone, it’s apparent Leliana greatly disapproves. The concern is heartwarming, as the memory still stings. Her front teeth are prominent now, but they were much larger in proportion to the rest of her face as a child. 

“Nugs aren’t insults,” Leliana says, quite incensed. “They’re adorable! Why would anyone?”

“You’re defending the honor of nugs? What of _mine_?”

“Come now, Josie,” and she’s chuckling, this lovely fiend. “It’s a compliment, really. Cute as a nug. See?”

She is a difficult friend at times, Leliana. Dressed in layers of varying truths, always very careful with what fabric she reveals to whom. A tease - never cruel, but often choosing mischief over tact. A planner, a schemer, but disinclined to share even with those directly involved in her machinations. She has many edges and she keeps them very sharp, listens only to her own convictions and is nearly never swayed until direct experience proves her wrong.

She is faithful, though. Yes, she is a master of lies but in friendship she is strong and true, and her loyalty, once won, cannot be lost. There’s no part of her she would hesitate to give for those she wishes to protect, and her capacity for empathy goes far. Her heart is that of a woman who wishes nothing but good to the world, Josephine believes this, no matter how readily she draws her knife these days, how she steels herself to carry out the task she has been dealt. 

And she is joyful. She is devious pranks and delightful songs and exciting tales, sunlit gardens and fetching shoes and sparkly drinks. Less so as of late, this is true, but it’s not all gone. That is the core of her, Josephine is certain. It will prevail through the darkness and into the dawn.

She sighs and resumes her story, whether Leliana deserves it or not.

“When I was twelve-”

“And precious, and not at all a nug-”

“Oh, do be quiet!” Josephine laughs, equal parts charmed and exasperated, as she tends to be around this woman, this impossible person who is her dearest friend.“I was twelve, Yvette was nine, and we climbed the cliffs by the Merchant Hall. Are you familiar with the place?”

The name is deceptively modest. The Merchant Hall is a veritable palace, a gem glittering under the stark Rialto sun. Not far from the Boulevard of the Seas it sticks to the ocean inspired color scheme of turquoise and green, but adds tiles of marble as white as the foam crowning the waves down in the bay and the broad facade has imposing proportions and delicate lines, a manifestation both of power and culture. Established ages ago, intended for meetings and counsels among the the princes, it now mostly functions as the lavish setting for astonishing balls, marvellous fêtes and spectacular assassinations. 

Leliana nods, of course she’s familiar with the Merchant Hall, and Josephine continues: “On the eastern side of the Hall gardens, you know the gardens? The building sits high on the cliffs, you have the most splendid view of the city from there. The port, the packing district, the parks… Oh, and the sea….” She has to pause and let the wave of homesickness wash over. Nearly half of her life has been spent abroad, but Antiva City is forever etched into her heart. 

“It is a beautiful city,” Leliana says, and Josephine nods.

“But I was telling you about those gardens,” she says. “Now, on the eastern side the cliff wall continues straight up towards the upper royal estates; straight to the north is a steep slope. But if you turn west, the cliffs are a bit more gentle, the slope goes down in- in ledges. Shelves?” 

She tests the words against the image in her head, the irregular stone terraces on the other side of the high, neatly trimmed hedge that encloses the soft lawns and symmetrical flowerbeds. A sliver of wilderness - that’s how she saw it then, as a child, a girl who only knew nature from pictures in books - somehow preserved right in the middle of Antiva City. The stone was polished and smooth, jagged and harsh, all in turns. 

“It is… more of a hillside, but rocks- Oh, I can’t explain it well. Can you picture it at all?”

“I can,” Leliana assures her, but Josephine still raises her hands to draw up an invisible picture in the air.

“So, the garden sits up here… With the building at your back you would have the cliff wall rising to your left, the cliff slope to your right - some distance to each of course, it is a truly magnificent garden, especially after the new fountains were installed. The style is Orlesian but not at all overbearing, as one might fear. They were a gift from a comte from Val Chevin who spends his summers in Antiva. The DuMarques, you know the DuMarques? Not personally? Oh, right, the DuMarques debacle was after your time at court. The eldest son ran off with the gardener, a man fifteen years his senior! He was disowned and the family trade suffered horrendously under the scandal, but I hear it’s a happy union nonetheless. They run a goat farm now, if you can believe it, not far from-”

“Josie…” 

“Of course, that… may not be entirely relevant here.” She clears her throat. “What I meant to say was that if you stick your head out through the hedge, you can see a very tiny beach right at the bottom of that steep slope I mentioned.” 

A sliver of white carved out between the dark rock and deep sea, bathed in sunlight so far below, sitting on the other side of danger but ever so beckoning. A promise of whispering shells and dried starfish, treasures far more valuable to a child than the pearls around her neck or the gold on her fingers. 

“I decided to climb down the cliffs and reach the beach that way-”

“Wait,” Leliana says. “You decided? Just like that?”

“Is it so unthinkable?”

“It seems a little out of character, that’s all.”

“You didn’t even know me back then! How can you know?”

"Hmm. Let's see." Leliana tilts her head. "A young girl, teased, maybe not considered pretty by those who have no eye for beauty," here Josephine blushes, only a little, "and with a nature sensitive enough to still feel hurt decades later. Sensitive, yes. A little shy? I do think so, based on what you've told me before. A younger sister always in tow. And rich, relatively. Dressed in finery by an adoring mother - you tell me, Josie. Would this proper little lady get her tender heart set on dangerous climbs out of nowhere?"

"Why, Sister Nightingale," Josephine says, then can't think of anything to counter with.

"I'm right, aren't I." It's not a question, and not as smug as she's rightfully earned to be. Josephine concedes.

"Yes," she says, "you are. My 'tender heart' was set on a boy, at the time."

Leliana's eyes positively sparkle. "So this story has romantic stakes."

"He was the son of our gardener - yes, a gardener of my very own."

"But since you're not the mistress of a goat farm..."

"...It did not work out, no," Josephine says with a laugh. 

She's not good at laughing at herself, not typically. Oh, she knows it might be a flaw, but her position demands respectability and her work involves demanding respectability of everyone else. How can she, unless she presents herself as spotless? Then there are the wretched tremors that shiver through her limbs as memories of past embarrassments touch the surface of her consciousness...

She has come so far from the person she was. Perhaps it's unfair to be so retroactively stern towards so small a girl, so young a woman, to all her naïvety and awkwardness, the steps she stumbled through and the frogs that jumped out her mouth. Perhaps she should consider her adolescent self with greater kindness than she does, think of the awkwardness with not so heavy a heart. She doesn't have to flee her. She truly is the woman she used to dream of becoming, now, she is assured and confident, she can both gain respect and hold it. She can dance and converse with no stutters, she can negotiate and conspire with ease. She has knowledge. She has grace. No one remarks upon her teeth or her nose, and if they do they will regret it. 

Perhaps it can feel good, not only mortifying, to once in a while share a secret soreness with one who will only laugh at you in kindness, lift the shroud of shame around the memory and make it light.

"I had a terrible crush," Josephine confesses. "He was a bit older, and quite tall for his age. I imagine I thought him mature, an impressive fourteen." 

"Was he your first love?"

"Unless one counts the figures in my storybooks, yes." There are still some of her four year old self portraits, depicted hand in hand with Princess Petticoat, in her mother's secretaire. "How silly, looking back."

"Not at all," Leliana says. "He was a lucky boy. I hope he knew to appreciate that," and there is just the slightest knife-edge to her voice, that ridiculously overblown protectiveness that is at once infuriating and endlessly sweet. 

"He knew me as annoying, I'm sure. My early attempts at flirting mainly meant appearing wherever he did, to... to shadow him. I don't think I knew myself what I was trying to achieve by it."

"Until you decided to climb those cliffs."

"My father was lending our gardener to the Merchant Hall - Vicente was famous for his hand with roses, and paid extra for this added workload, naturally. Father brought me and Yvette along, on my insistence. I claimed I wanted to see the gardens, but I'm sure you can imagine my real motive. I knew Felipe would be there as well, assisting his father at work as usual."

She remembers the day quite vividly. Very hot for being so early in the summer, the sky a brilliant blue. Her dress had been flowy muslin, her shoes thin with supple calf leather soles. 

"There were a few other boys at the Hall as well. I cannot recall now who they were... Kitchen hands, perhaps? Or busboys, oh, it doesn't matter. They might have been a little older than Felipe, I think, and so we were both trying to impress people we perceived as our betters," Josephine says, and she can still call upon that feeling: the discovery of romance, its urges and longings, the very first attempt to explore that sweet anguish.

"I was hovering around them, as I was wont to do, and overheard their conversation about the small beach below. How it would be a feat to climb all the way down, how they bragged about almost making it. And so, my course was set. I would make it all the way down, and win Felipe's heart."

"Because being better than a man at something typically inspires love, and not contempt," Leliana says wryly. 

"At twelve years of age, this is what I thought," Josephine says. "Although it does happen. The way the Iron Bull looks at our Lady Inquisitor-"

"Is the exception confirming the rule."

"Be that as it may," Josephine says, unwilling to commit to cynicism, "I immediately took to my task." 

The odd sink-floaty dizzy feeling of looking down from atop a hill. Having just squeezed herself through the hedge, torn her dress and gotten leaves in her hair, the prickly worry that a bug should fall down her collar. And then stone under her feet, the glittering sea right ahead, her belly bubbling with rebellion. 

"I fared rather well at first. The cliffs at the top were not very steep and I had ample foothold." The warm granite under her palms, tiny bright yellow flowers with thick, juicy leaves growing in the crevices. "But this initial success was not to last. Yvette refused to be left behind."

"Is this going to end with the brave rescue of a sister falling to her death?" Leliana asks.

"Nothing quite so dire, nor dashing," Josephine says. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves. As you can imagine, I was none to happy at having Yvette follow me - the boys were watching! Though I could not tell her to go away, either, as she was certain to run and alert my father. So I climbed on, and Yvette climbed after. We were making excellent progress until we reached the lower terrace. Below the Merchant Hall, shaded by these cliffs we were now climbing, lay a mansion of another family of the lower gentry.” She pauses. “...I forgot to tell you this before. I'm afraid I am still not much of a storyteller."

“It’s times like these when you pretend this is what you meant to do all along, for the pacing.”

“But I really _am_ not much of a storyteller.”

"Hush, just pretend!"

“I shall accept the compliment with grace, then?”

“See that you do.”

They trade smiles. Leliana is being all too kind - Josephine may have made a brief stint as bard but she never excelled at any aspect of the trade, least of all the singing, the weaving of tales. She works the fine threads that connect people in a different way, and she is content with her skills as they are. Still, it’s good to hear her tale is appreciated, rough-spun as it is. 

“Where was I… Oh, yes, the lower mansion. They used to have a terrace right below the cliffs. Paved with enchanted pink and purple marble that sparkled in the sun.”

Leliana makes a little sound of disgust. “Sounds gauche.”

“It was, I assure you,” Josephine says. The Fiori family are known for their wealth and frivolity, not their good taste. 

“Now, me and Yvette were still on our climb and found ourselves veering west, inevitably. The cliffs were much harsher and steeper to the north-east than they had appeared from above. This, of course, took us away from the beach, not towards.” The first flutter of fear, fingers tensing around the edges. Foothold scarcer and more perilous now, loose pebbles rolling under her thin soles. Trying not to think of the fall. “I was getting worried, but turning back was not an option.” Throat dry, the weight of the eyes watching her overhead. “I did not plan my climb very well, and after a while I found myself scooting along a very small ledge, about half a foot-width. As it became ever thinner and the handholds ever fewer.”

“Why not turn around? You must have known you couldn’t succeed at that point.”

“I was frightened. Truly frightened - too much to properly gauge the distance to the terrace below, and too much to retrace my steps and reach for another ledge, or cliff. Meanwhile Yvette was faring much better.”

“She wasn’t scared?”

“Not as far as i could tell,” Josephine says, and Leliana chuckles.

“Dear Yvette. Nothing gets her off balance.”

“That is more true than you know.” Josephine sighs. She often wishes Yvette would be a little less unflappable amidst her canvases and poetry books and feel the concerns of estate and family more acutely. “It certainly looked that way, however, as she all of a sudden leaned dangerously out to peer at the terrace below.” She can hear Yvette’s voice in her head, not the child but the young woman, the high, tittering tone that fills her with so much love and concern both. “Josie! They have crème caramel!”

“I’m sorry,” Leliana says, “what?”

“The Fiori servants were setting a dessert table on the terrace, did I not tell you? Forgive me, I was so sure… Well. They were. Yvette loves crème caramel, she could eat buckets of it, and was leaning excitedly out to have a look, so close to falling.”

“...Oh, no.”

“And I thought she would, and I reached to catch her-”

“Oh, _no_.”

“-and instead I was the one to fall.”

She pauses for dramatic emphasis, and Leliana plays her part perfectly, eyes wide in shocked suspense despite Josephine’s survival being a clear thing. 

“I hit a hawthorn bush, rolled off it and hit the dessert table.” Josephine hesitates, “I... fell right into the caramel. That is, I sat in it.”

Caramel sauce seeping through her bloomers. Her tailbone smarting and her hair come undone. Servants yelling, flower arrangements knocked askew and shattered crystal glasses. 

She has buried her face in her hands before Leliana starts laughing. Oh, she regrets now. She regrets every word given, and yet, the sound of laughter, laughter pouring freely from Leliana’s lips, is wonderful. Her cheeks are burning, but her heart is open, soaks it all up until she is laughing, too. 

“You could have died,” Leliana says, once her breath has calmed. “Or gotten seriously hurt.”

“Andraste watched over me.” 

“She must have. But what about Yvette?”

“Yvette,” Josephine sighs, “made her way down unharmed, and without much trouble, so as to ensure our father’s attention was focused solely on me and my… situation.”

“Well done, Yvette,” Leliana says, not heeding the purse of Josephine’s lips. “And then?”

“I was thoroughly scolded and promptly whisked home and into a bath. For the next three years I studiously avoided the gardener's son, until I left for Val Royeaux.”

“Where you blossomed.”

“Where you were already in bloom.”

They smile at one another. The sun falls not as brightly through the windows anymore - noon has stilled into afternoon. The shadows are longer, wider, but Leliana’s eyes are alight and happy when she takes Josephine’s hand, brings it to her lips. She kisses her just like she did all those years ago, when Josephine was just a girl and Leliana a different woman. 

And yet - Leliana’s lips are as warm and dry as they have always been. Josephine’s heart swells as it always has, as it always will. They are as they will always be: united in friendship, strengthened by love. 

“If I told you about the time I rode the sails of a windmill, would you trade me a kiss for it?” Leliana says.

Josephine strokes her cheek, pulls the hood from her head.

“I will gladly give you two.”


End file.
